by Pigeon Patrol | Feb 26, 2020 | 4-S Gel Bird repellent, Animal Deterrent Products, Bird Deterrent Products, Bird Netting, Bird Spike, Bird Spikes, Pigeon Control, Pigeon Droppings, Pigeon Patrol's Services, Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons in the News, UltraSonic Bird Control
Bird fever Symptoms
Most people with acute pulmonary histoplasmosis have no symptoms or only mild symptoms. The most common bird fever symptoms are:
- Chest pain
- Chills
- Cough
- Fever
Joint pain and stiffness
- Muscle aches and stiffness
- Rash (usually small sores on the lower legs)
- Shortness of breath
Acute pulmonary histoplasmosis can be a serious illness in the very young, elderly, and people with weakened immune systems, including those who:
Have HIV/AIDS
Have had bone marrow or solid organ transplants
Take medications to suppress their immune system
Symptoms in these persons may include:
Inflammation around the heart (called pericarditis)
Serious lung infections
Severe joint pain
Exams and Tests
To diagnose histoplasmosis, the doctor needs to find the fungus or signs of the fungus in the body, or evidence that your immune system is reacting to the fungus.
Tests to detect Bird Fever symptoms include:
Antibody tests for histoplasmosis
Biopsy of infection site
Bronchoscopy (usually only done if symptoms are severe or you have an abnormal immune system)
Complete blood count (CBC) with differential
Chest CT scan
Chest x-ray (might show a lung infection or pneumonia)
Sputum culture (this test often does not show the fungus, even if you are infected)
Urine test for Histoplasma capsulatum antigen
Treatment
Most cases of histoplasmosis clear up without specific treatment. Patients are advised to rest and take medication to control fever.
Your doctor may prescribe medication if you are sick for more than 4 weeks, have a weakened immune system, or are having breathing problems.
Outlook (Prognosis)
When histoplasmosis infection is severe or gets worse, the illness may last for one to six months. Even then, it is rarely fatal.
Acute pulmonary histoplasmosis can become chronic pulmonary histoplasmosis (which does not go away).
Histoplasmosis can spread from the lungs to other organs through the bloodstream. This type of spread is usually seen in infants, young children, and persons with a weakened immune system.
Possible Complications
Acute pulmonary histoplasmosis can get worse over time, or can become chronic pulmonary histoplasmosis (which doesn’t go away).
Histoplasmosis can spread to other organs through the bloodstream (dissemination). This is usually seen in infants, young children, and patients with a suppressed immune system.
When to Contact a Medical Professional
Call your health care provider if:
You have symptoms of histoplasmosis, especially if you have a weakened immune system or have been recently exposed to bird or bat droppings
You are being treated for histoplasmosis and develop new symptoms
Prevention
Avoid contact with bird or bat droppings if you are in an area where the spore is common, especially if you have a weakened immune system.
At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Source
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
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by Pigeon Patrol | Feb 26, 2020 | 4-S Gel Bird repellent, Animal Deterrent Products, Bird Deterrent Products, Bird Netting, Bird Spike, Bird Spikes, Pigeon Control, Pigeon Droppings, Pigeon Patrol's Services, Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons in the News, UltraSonic Bird Control
What is Bird Fever, Bird Flu, scientifically known as Histoplasmosis, an acute (primary) pulmonary disease
Acute pulmonary histoplasmosis is a respiratory infection that is caused by inhaling the spores of the fungus Histoplasma capsulatum, the fungus that causes histoplasmosis. The infection usually affects the lungs and symptoms can vary greatly. It can sometimes affect other parts of the body, including the eyes, liver, central nervous system, skin, or adrenal glands. For example, “ocular histoplasmosis syndrome” (also known as “presumed ocular histoplasmosis”) is a condition that results in impaired vision (affects the eyes). Having a weakened immune system increases your risk for getting this disease (e.g., the very young, very old, or those with medical conditions that lower the body’s resistance to infections).
This Histoplasma organism thrives in moderate temperatures and moist environments. It is found in the central and eastern United States, eastern Canada, Mexico, Central America, South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. It is commonly found in the soil in river valleys. It gets into the soil mostly from droppings from chickens, pigeons, starlings, blackbirds, and bats. Birds are not infected with it because of their high body temperatures, but they do carry it on their feathers. Bats can be infected because they have a lower body temperature than birds and can excrete the organism in their droppings.
To multiply, Histoplasma capsulatum produces small spores called conidia. The conidia of Histoplasma capsulatum are only two millionths of a meter (microns, �m) in diameter. When these conidia are inhaled, they are small enough that they enter the lungs and start an infection. Many of these infections are easily overlooked because they either produce mild symptoms or none at all. However, histoplasmosis can be severe and produce an illness similar to tuberculosis.
You can get sick when you breathe in spores that the fungus produces. Every year, thousands of people worldwide are infected, but most do not become seriously sick. Most have no symptoms or have only a mild flu-like illness and recover without any treatment.
Acute pulmonary histoplasmosis may happen as an epidemic, with many people in one region becoming sick at the same time. People with weakened immune systems (see Symptoms section below) are more likely to:
- Get the disease, if exposed to the fungus spores
- Have the disease come back
- Have more symptoms, and more serious symptoms, than others who get the disease.
Risk factors include traveling to or living in the central or eastern United States near the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys, and being exposed to the droppings of birds and bats. This threat is greatest after an old building is torn down, or when exploring caves.
Question: “The town where I live is home to a legion of pigeons, and we have many tales of people getting sick with “bird fever.” I am a teacher, and I work in a very old school. I have seen two very large piles of pigeon droppings in the school’s attic. I am concerned because I work on the floor directly below the attic, the ceiling of my classroom has cracks in it. Also, the school has recently installed a new air conditioning system in the attic. Am I at risk for catching bird fever?”
Answer: The fungus, Histoplasma capsulatum, can be found in pigeon droppings. Infection by H. capsulatum can cause the disease Histoplasmosis. Three fourths of those who are infected with the fungus exhibit no symptoms or show symptoms of influenza (“flu”). One quarter of those who are infected with the fungus exhibit illness of varying severity, and among these the most common illness is a pneumonia of short duration.
Source
At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
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by Pigeon Patrol | Feb 26, 2020 | 4-S Gel Bird repellent, Animal Deterrent Products, Bird Deterrent Products, Bird Netting, Bird Spike, Bird Spikes, Pigeon Control, Pigeon Droppings, Pigeon Patrol's Services, Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons in the News, UltraSonic Bird Control
How Did the Pigeon Get to NYC? One can scarcely think of any park in NYC — or any city, really — without envisioning the ubiquitous pigeon there as well. Despite signs requesting you not feed the birds in adjacent Bryant Park, the library has more than its share of feathered patrons.
But how did this non-native species become the bird most associated with New York City? Pigeons are certainly not indigenous, but they have made themselves quite at home in the Big Apple. In Wild New York: A Guide to the Wildlife, Wild Places, & Natural Phenomena of New York City, authors Margaret Mittelbach and Michael Crewdson explain “Also called rock doves, pigeons were first brought to this country from Europe, probably during the 1600s, and that their original status here was that of a barnyard animal, raised purely for the table.”
Captive pigeons somehow struck out on their own, nesting easily in the crevices of buildings that are not that different than the cliff sides on which their ancestors dwelled. Over time, pigeons and their young squab dwindle from menus and dinner tables. Ironically, most city pigeons depend exclusively on humans to feed them, whether purposefully or accidentally through litter.
Thousands of years ago in North Africa, people built dovecotes to house and raise pigeons for food and to use their droppings as fertilizers. New Yorkers have kept a similar relationship with pigeons by building coops on building rooftops and raising pigeons for racing and companionship. Bert on Sesame Street famously loves pigeons, enough to sing about it. Scientist Nikola Tesla was extremely fond of pigeons and would frequent NYC parks searching for injured birds, which he would then bring back to his residence at the Hotel New Yorker to nurse them back to health. His obsession with pigeons is documented in the novel The Invention of Everything Else and he had a favorite pigeon, which he mourned when she died.
The New York Times has covered pigeons in abundance and there are many non-fiction titles out there to help you learn more about these birds such as Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World’s Most Revered and Reviled Bird by Andrew D. Blechman. There are pigeon appreciation groups and documentaries by local filmmakers, such as JL Aronson’s Up on the Roof. Pigeons are definitely part of New York’s wildlife and landscape.
Source
At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
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by Pigeon Patrol | Feb 26, 2020 | 4-S Gel Bird repellent, Animal Deterrent Products, Bird Deterrent Products, Bird Netting, Bird Spike, Bird Spikes, Pigeon Control, Pigeon Droppings, Pigeon Patrol's Services, Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons in the News, UltraSonic Bird Control
Trichomoniasis: Finding Sick, dying or dead pigeons?
Hello Everyone
We have been getting an increasing number of
Trichomoniasis related calls at this time of year. Every year outbreaks are seen during the late summer and autumn. This disease does not pose a threat to the health of humans, cats or dogs.
Greenfinches are reported most frequently, but potentially any bird can be infected, including pigeons and doves and some birds of prey. The trichomonad parasite lives in the upper digestive tract of the bird, and its actions progressively block the bird’s throat making it unable to swallow food, thus killing it by starvation.
The infection is spread as pigeons feed one another with regurgitated food during the breeding season, and through food and drinking water contaminated with regurgitated saliva. Saliva can also contaminate a birdbath. Trichomoniasis cannot live long outside a hosted pigeons.
Trichomoniasis causes lesions in the throat of the infected pigeons, which makes it progressively harder for the bird to swallow its food, and eventually breathe. Birds will also show signs of lethargy and fluffed up plumage, drooling saliva and regurgitated food. Affected birds frequently have matted wet plumage around the face and beak and uneaten food in and around the beak.
If a number of birds show symptoms, we recommend to stop putting out all food and leave bird baths dry for at least three weeks. This helps to disperse the feeding birds and reduce the contact between sick and healthy individuals, thus slowing down the outbreak. The higher the concentration of birds at a feeding station, the greater the chance of another bird picking up an infected food particle and exposing itself to the infection.
There are also a few other actions you can take to help:
Use feeders with drainage holes to avoid moisture building up
– Use more than one feeding site to reduce the number of birds in one place
– Rotate feeders around several locations to ‘rest’ each spot to prevent build up of infection on the ground underneath.
– Clean and disinfect feeders and water baths regularly, rinsing thoroughly and allowing to air dry completely – this itself will kill some diseases
– Keep the bucket and brush you clean feeders with outside and using just for this purpose
– Sweep up droppings and spilt or old food and disposing of it carefully in an outside bin
– Change the water in baths frequently – ideally daily
– Wash your hands carefully afterwards
No effective treatment can be administered to birds in the wild, because it is impossible to ensure that the infected individuals receive an adequate dose and that healthy birds do not pick up the medicine.
At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
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by Pigeon Patrol | Feb 26, 2020 | 4-S Gel Bird repellent, Animal Deterrent Products, Bird Deterrent Products, Bird Netting, Bird Spike, Bird Spikes, Pigeon Control, Pigeon Droppings, Pigeon Patrol's Services, Pigeon Spikes, Pigeons in the News, UltraSonic Bird Control
Did The Common Pigeon Bring An AIDS-Defining Fungus To Asia?
New research has shed light on the origins of a fungal infection which is one of the major causes of death from AIDS-related illnesses that pigeon may bring.
AsianScientist (May 4, 2011) – New research has shed light on the origins of a fungal infection which is one of the major causes of death from AIDS-related illnesses. The study, published yesterday in the journal PLoS Pathogens, shows how the more virulent forms of Cryptococcus neoformans evolved and spread out of Africa and into Asia. C. neoformans is a highly pathogenic fungi which causes life-threatening infections in immunocompromised humans.
The fungus mainly lives in decaying pigeon or chicken droppings and enters the human host through the respiratory tract. The spores spread to extrapulmonary tissues and the central nervous system where it causes meningitis. A particularly virulent form, C. neoformans variety grubii (Cng), is a major cause of death among HIV-AIDS infected patients.
Up to 1 million cases of cryptococcal meningitis that result in over 600,000 deaths are reported each year. Cryptococcal meningitis affects nearly 20 percent of HIV-AIDS patients in Thailand, where HIV-AIDS is an emerging epidemic.
Researchers from the U.K., Netherlands, and Naresuan University in Thailand took 183 clinical samples in Thailand and compared them with the global database of 77 isolates. Genetic sequencing revealed that the Thailand samples taken from 11 provinces were highly homogenous. In comparison with the rest of the world’s population of Cng, specifically Africa where most of the lineages are found, the strains in Thailand had significantly less genetic diversity.
Analyses on the origin of Thailand’s strain dated it back to an ancestral African population diverging within the last 7,000 years. The common pigeon, domesticated 5,000 years ago, is thought to have spread the pathogen through its excrements when it was introduced to Europe. Subsequent voyages from Europe to Asia 500 years ago may have allowed Cng to broaden its ecological range.
The article can be found at: Simwami SP et al. (2011) Low Diversity Cryptococcus neoformans Variety grubii Multilocus Sequence Types from Thailand Are Consistent with an Ancestral African Origin. ——
Source: Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.
At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.
Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca
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